Theatre in Review: Bauer (San Francisco Playhouse/59E59)

	Stacy Ross, Sherman Howard. Photo: Carol Rosegg

The playwright Lauren Gunderson knows a juicy situation when she sees it; her new play, Bauer, combines dramatic fireworks with a fascinating bit of art history scandal in a package that is all but guaranteed to keep audiences engaged. Even when it turns a little too pat -- which it does, several times -- Bauer remains the theatrical equivalent of a page-turning novel. You might question it from time to time, but that won't stop you from eagerly waiting for the next bombshell revelation.

As a recent Sunday Times profile noted, it was Gunderson's good luck that Bill English, artistic director of San Francisco Playhouse and director and set designer of Bauer, brought to her attention the story of Rudolf Bauer, a lesser-known modernist painter whose tragic fate is irretrievably tangled up with the history of New York's Guggenheim Museum. Bauer, an active player in Germany's avant-garde art scene in the teens and '20s, had a tempestuous affair with Hilla von Rebay, a baroness, painter, and, as dramatized by Gunderson, the kind of woman who sucked up half the oxygen in a room simply by entering. Hilla eventually moved to New York, where she met Solomon Guggenheim and began guiding him in the building of his extraordinary collection of contemporary art. Back in Germany, Bauer ran afoul of the Nazis, ending up in the notorious Degenerate Art exhibition, and, later, in prison.

Guggenheim and Hilla got Bauer out of jail and brought him to America; Guggenheim signed him to a contract that provided him with a home, trust fund, and income for life, in exchange for all his future paintings. It appears that Guggenheim saw his forthcoming museum, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, as a showcase for Bauer's oeuvre.

What happened next is a tad murky, but Bauer quickly experienced signer's remorse. Apparently, his command of English wasn't great and he failed to realize that neither the trust fund nor the home officially belonged to him -- and, given Guggenheim's control of his paintings, what originally seemed like the deal of a lifetime was revealed to be a gilded cage. In response, he put down his brush, spending the last years of his life in idleness. He died, embittered, in 1953.

Bauer, the play, begins in January 1953, with the ailing artist holed up in his Jersey Shore mansion with his wife, Louise; he hasn't touched a canvas in nearly a decade and now lung cancer is eating away at him. He and Hilla are deeply estranged. He accuses her of betraying him in the Guggenheim deal; she can't forgive him for marrying Louise, his former maid.

Hilla appears as part of a planned summit meeting between enemies. (The identity of the person behind this icy get-together is one of the play's big shockers.) Following Guggenheim's death, Hilla has been removed from her director position and Bauer's paintings -- some 200 of them -- have been relegated to the museum's basement, where the family intends to keep them in perpetuity. (Hilla's affair with Guggenheim, to say nothing of her naturally imperious manner, has done little to endear her to them.) Hilla has a proposition: She and Bauer forget the past and team up to fight the Guggenheim family. Her plan is to shame them by publicizing Bauer's plight -- but to do so, he must first take up his paintbrush again.

Gunderson plunders this triangular situation to good effect, spiking the action with plenty of abrasive commentary. Told that Wright is designing the Guggenheim for him, Bauer snaps, "That showman is designing it for himself. It's not for me, it's barely for the art. How do you hang a painting on a curve?" (That line got plenty of knowing laughter from the audience at the performance I attended.) Accusing Hilla of complicity with Guggenheim, he roars, "You were sleeping with the man." "Not a lot," she replies airily. Noting acidly that it was she who hired Louise, Hilla says, "By marrying the first thing that made you dinner, you betray me." Louise, who has dressed for the occasion, tells Hilla, "If you're not going to look at me at any point during the day, I'd just as soon go change into something less constrictive."

Younger or more avant-garde-minded theatregoers might find the play's action, with its detail exposition, and reversals that arrive, on the dot, at 15-minute intervals, to be a little old-fashioned, even soap-operatic. It must be said that, in trying to cram an enormous amount of backstory into a 90-minute drama, Gunderson has allowed a certain artificiality to creep in. Also, at times her treatment of this complex tangle verges on the cursory. She never fully explores why Hilla so enthusiastically promoted Guggenheim's contract; did she not realize the effect it would have on her ex-lover? It's not clear why Bauer never fought back -- a civil court might have looked kindly on the complaint of a Nazi refugee who felt ill-treated by a multi-millionaire; he could have mightily embarrassed Solomon Guggenheim, to say the least. Also, Louise and Bauer are upset because Hilla smeared Louise publicly -- but exactly where and when this happened isn't detailed. And could the Guggenheims really have been content to keep Bauer on the payroll over the course of a decade in which he has produced no work? What did Bauer do to fill his days?

Still, under English's direction, the exchanges are sharp, the tension builds steadily, and the emotional bloodletting is thoroughly gripping. Sherman Howard's Bauer has an urbane façade that barely masks his long-burning fury; he also hints convincingly at the character's ill health and mental disintegration, especially when he turns to his typewriter to bang out another incoherent expression of rage against the Guggenheims. As Hilla, Stacy Ross makes a strong impression from the moment she first enters, handing over her full-length fox wrap to Louise without making eye contact. She is an implacable foe, the kind of woman who glories in a good battle, yet who nevertheless is suddenly, painfully aware that she is running out of options. Susi Damilano's Louise isn't as subservient as she at first seems, giving as good as she gets when the occasion calls for it.

English's set design is a bit peculiar -- it looks more like the interior of a hôtel particulier in Paris than a home in New Jersey -- but it makes a good surface for Micah J. Stieglitz's projection sequences, which stunningly reveal bits of Bauer's paintings spread over the walls. Mary Louise Geiger's lighting convincingly tracks the passage of time, from late afternoon to early evening. Abra Berman's costume design includes a knockout ensemble for Hilla, complete with picture hat, seamed stockings, and that fur. Theodore J. H. Hulsker's sound design is perfectly solid.

Bauer ends with a surreal flourish, employing those projections, in which both women join to make a startlingly theatrical gesture celebrating Bauer's art. It's a stylistic break from the rest of the production, but it does send the audience out on a high note. Bauer isn't always an elegant piece of craftsmanship; unlike the work of its subject, its seams are visible for all the world to see. But it isn't boring, not for a second, and does justice to a fascinating real-life story. After the play is over, audiences are invited upstairs at 59E59 to see an exhibit about Bauer. I'm betting that you won't want to miss it.--David Barbour